John Mica Votes Against Defense Spending

Obama this week signed the Hate Crimes Bill into law:

More than 77,000 hate-crime incidents were reported by the FBI between 1998 and
2007, or "nearly one hate crime for every hour of every day over the span of a decade," Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee in June.
The FBI, Holder added, reported 7,624 hate-crime incidents in 2007, the most current year with complete data.

The Hate Crimes Act was included in the Defense Spending Bill, and was the sick reason John Mica for the first time in his life voted against defense spending:

After decades of defaming every Democrat, every liberal of any kind, progressive politics in general and anyone who opposes their party’s line, as “weak on defense” or “soft on crime”, often using the most convoluted rhetoric to make the defamatory claims, 28 Republican senators and 131 Republican House members have now voted to cut off funding for the US military in order to give special rights to violent criminals driven by hate.
These 159 Republicans in Congress voted against the Defense funding authorization bill, because it included the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which expands federal hate crimes law to punish attacks motivated by bias against gays.

John Mica in Anti-Stimulus Hall of Shame

Despite voting NO on the stimulus bill, John Mica immediately started taking credit for our nation receiving stimulus monies:

Representative John Mica (FL-07) - "I applaud President Obama's recognition that high-speed rail should be part of America's future." [Congressman John Mica Press Release; 2/13/09] Mica was also one of "Nine GOP House members from Florida, all stimulus no's, joined nine of their Democratic colleagues, all yesses, in asking the feds to grant a waiver giving them access to, you guessed it, hundreds of millions in state stabilization stimulus cash (for education)."

[Politico; 2/19/09]

Then he turns around and does NOT support High Speed Rail for his own state!

Ill-Fated Sunrail Project Cost Tax-Payers $832,000 For Public Relations

But that's not all. The total state tax-payer monies already spent on Central Florida Commuter Rail: a whopping $80 million.

Florida lawmakers this spring voted to kill Central Florida’s planned commuter-rail system, but state contractors still made nearly $44 million on the deal.
That’s how much the state Department of Transportation spent on nearly 60 contracts tied to SunRail, according to documents released Wednesday.
The total does not reflect all spending on the ill-fated project. For example, it does not include money spend on right-of-way acquisition. ( estimated at $20 million)
But it does include costs such as $802,000 on public relations, $91,000 for archaeological services and $30,000 for a website.

Yet Florida refuses to support the already existing South Florida Commuter Rail, Tri-Rail:

Legislators have previously rejected a proposed $2 surcharge on car rentals to
finance commuter-rail projects. That was despite the possibility that the state might have to give back some $256 million in federal aid if it
does not provide a continuing funding source for Tri-Rail.

The Sunrail project has failed twice and incredibly talk of it being resurrected is once again in the news. This time, let's investigate the special interests at work before proceeding with this ill-fated project.

But what the Orlando Republican did not reveal is that the engineering firm that bears his family name has received $1.7-million from the state to do survey and mapping work for the controversial CSX project in Central Florida. Nor did Precourt disclose his ties when he voted for the deal last session, as some other lawmakers have when their public and private interests appeared to overlap.
Now, CSX is back under the SunRail moniker, and a fight is brewing
-- one that will shine more light on advocates like Precourt.

Just one blatant example of the "personal" gains are at stake here.

Besides, the ill-fated project is said to reduce congestion on I-4 by reducing traffic by just 2%:

As a point of comparison, the Light Rail Transit System in the I-4 corridor had
a cost of $600 million and was voted DOWN by Orange County voters. It had a
ridership in excess of 24,000 per day.
Give the voters a choice between light rail (I-4 corridor) with 24,000 trips a day and commuter rail (on CSX tracks) with 3500 trips a day.

Now doesn't that makes sense!!

John Mica Solely Focused on US/Turkish Relations

The Sunlight Foundation has an interesting list tracking Foreign Lobbying Influence, and here are the results for John Mica:

John Mica, the Republican Representative in Florida's 7th District, appears solely focused on the nation of Turkey, meeting with lobbyists 5 times in 2007 about the
country. His donor list includes lobbyists representing New Zealand and
the United Arab Emirates.

http://jaxpoliticsonline.com/2009/10/11/jacksonville-area-congressmen-have-interesting-foreign-ties/